A Black American Radical Is Put on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List, and the New York Times Disapproves!

Yesterday, the AP reported that the FBI put Joanne Chesimard — a.k.a. Assata Shakur — on its Most Wanted Terrorists list, and announced a reward of $2 million for anyone whose information leads to her capture. After being found guilty, along with two other members of the violent Black Liberation Army, of murdering a New Jersey state trooper forty years ago to the day, Chesimard fled to Cuba. The revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro granted her asylum, and honored her not as a murderer and thug but as a fellow revolutionary freedom fighter.

“She continues to flaunt her freedom in the face of this horrific crime,” State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said at a news conference yesterday. Fuentes called the case “an open wound” for troopers in New Jersey and around the nation. The shooting of trooper Werner Foerster during a routine traffic stop, in which Shakur and her comrades quickly started firing at the police, led to Foerster’s death and the injury of his partner.

The BLA was responsible in the ’70s and ’80s for the deaths of over 12 police officers.

They considered such actions as revolutionary acts against occupiers of the ghetto, and not as illegal, but as a response to acts of war instigated on the black community by the imperialist U.S. government. Hence, when they shot police they were acting as soldiers opposed to the U.S. that was making war against them.

While in Cuba, Chesimard has often been brought by Cuban authorities to meet with gullible revolutionary tourists, who still travel there as political pilgrims seeking to see what life in paradise is like. And in our country, black radicals still treat her as a hero.

A few years back, the rapper known as “Common” released a song praising her action. The rapper’s version of events differs significantly from that portrayed in the Newark Division of the FBI’s official press release.

While “Common” says Chesimard was lying in a puddle of blood gasping for breath, “shot twice wit her hands up/police questioned but shot before she answered,” the FBI report reveals the truth, which accords with the philosophy of the group and the proud boasts of other BLA prisoners about how they regularly sought to kill police. The report tells us the following:

On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and two accomplices were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike by Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster for a motor vehicle violation. All three subjects possessed fictitious identification, and, unbeknownst to the troopers, all three were armed with semi-automatic handguns. From the front passenger seat, Chesimard fired the first shot, wounding Trooper James Harper in the shoulder. As Harper moved for cover, Chesimard exited the car and continued to fire at both troopers until she was wounded by Harper’s return fire.

The rear seat passenger, James Coston, also fired at the troopers and was mortally wounded by Trooper Harper. Trooper Werner Foerster was engaged in a hand-to-hand combat with the vehicle’s driver, Clark Squire. Foerster was severely wounded in his right arm and abdomen and then executed with his own service weapon on the roadside. Chesimard’s jammed handgun was found at Foerster’s side.

Special Agent Aaron T. Ford, head of the FBI Newark Division, is certainly correct when he states that “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style.”

It is no surprise that the Left, or sections of it, still defend Chesimard/Shakur. It is another thing, however, to read the New York Times story that appears on the top news page of the paper’s website.

Well, color me cynical, but I suppose if Hillary can't be the first female president after blowing Benghazi we may as well have the first black female terrorist make the FBI's numero uno on their most wanted list. I'm still trying to figure why a Geritol for lunch bunch member in Cuba wanted for criminal acts in the USA when kidnapped Patty Hurst was going rogue can bump what's his name from the honorary number one spot for facilitating 9/11? I believe he's still hanging out in Pakistan, and he's now the current Al Queda leader and former Osama's number two when bin Laden was still alive. Hey, maybe amnesty is in the works?

"A Black American Radical Is Put on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List, and the New York Times Disapproves!"

Are you kidding me? Where in the article did the Times say it "disapproved"? Or were you just "reading between the lines" like you addled conspiracy nuts always do? Stop peddling this race-baiting garbage.

This administration is filled with cheerleaders for her and her comrades in arms, starting at the very top of our law enforcement structure.

Our DOJ is filled with those who would leap at the chance to defend her and refuse to prosecute her.

Our State Dept. is manned with people who wrote papers in college and testified to Congress in support of these types of revolutions.

And our Commander in Chief launched his career in the living room of similar, if not worse, offenders.

So, my question is....why now?

On the heels of Boston and Benghazi...why put her on a list they know damn well they won't act upon?

To distract the eye? To "unMuslim male" the list? To get the Daily Duranty to discuss "innocence"? She doesn't make the list for three and a half decades, isn't in the country and does not appear to pose an immediate physical threat to the safety and security of our citizens.

"To distract the eye? To "unMuslim male" the list? To get the Daily Duranty to discuss "innocence"? She doesn't make the list for three and a half decades, isn't in the country and does not appear to pose an immediate physical threat to the safety and security of our citizens."

I think your first two suggestions are especially likely to be true, although I don't doubt that the NYT welcomes the chance to bloviate about "innocence".

The whole terrorist list was published at PJM yesterday and Chesimard was the only woman and one of only two people that didn't have Muslim names yet she and the Hispanic male were at the top of the list and the others all follow, as if the Muslims are somehow less bad.

Given her long stay in Cuba, I think its safe to say that the chances of someone turning her in are slim at best, at least as long as the Castros live.

She's gotta be pushing 60 yro? Whose $2 mil is the FBI using to go after this so-called terrorist? The writer thinks the cops in the sixties were totally innocent when it came to dealing Black people, and Black radicals. The nerve of white racist imperialist White folks to call anybody terrorist. The entire enslavement and racist segregation of Black people were/are acts of terrorism. Most conservative white folks are greedy, lying cheats who think the entire world should bow down to their stupidity. Conservative white folks always think somebody's out to get them—mainly because they have done wrong to so many people. Assata Shakur is my hero.

Slavery is wrong no matter where it is practiced. And seriously, the White conservative establishment is a conspicuous part of racist America, so it's difficult to not know them.

As for Assta, I will take the story she writes of her life over what any White man or group of people have to say about her. If she killed a cop back then, well good, one less cop to on the street to deal with.

White conservatives need to stop blaming Black people for the problems in this country. Blame your ancestors for enslaving my ancestors. They never should have dragged my people to this racist nightmare in the first place. If I had the money to leave, I would in a heat beat. I hate this imperialist, war hungry country who thinks its better than anybody else.

And I'm sure Assta doesnt give damn about the $2 mil bounty on her life. Only the warped racist elements in this country would spend that much money to go after a 60+ woman who clearly poses no threat to anyone.

Brilliant exposition! Only a gifted amateur could have come up with this stylish and pithy condemnation of all that passes for reason, logic, and decency in our shock-absorbing society. Fie on all professional racists, and a turd for all decent Americans everywhere.

As for you, Byron, my 'Lord Byron' from now on, your comments are a fun- and fact-filled editorial suitable for the exalted pages of the Daily Kos or the NYT. I am in awe. Would you consider running for President I wonder?

Hell no, I wouldn't want the blood of innocent victims of war on my hands. Obama is a sellout. I didn't vote for him or any of those lying politicians. 80% of what is written in all media, right or left is editorial. I just go with the left opinion because the right consists of backward, racist, selfish thugs who will lie and steal to maintain power and privilege. Too bad most of my people are too ignorant to see how f-ed up this country is, and how most of the Right forces would kill us all off if they could get away with it. The conservative Right and their ignorant god belief hold humanity back from real progress.

But, Lord Byron old chap, innocent of what...that's the question, eh? All those innocents running around the battlefields of the world. Why don't they just stay home like good pacifists? Good pacifists like you, who often disguise their intellect and objectivity just like you do by trolling around conservative sites, calling everyone but yourself a racist slaver, and looking for a good fight.

But good for you for not falling for that God stuff. Heck you know who my Pope is? Why Steven Hawking, who goes around preaching about a 'singularity', none of that God stuff for him.

Why don't they stay at home? Hmmm, according to even corporate media many of have been killed in their homes! But that's okay, they're just dark skinned poor people who "hate our freedom." Isn't that what Right-wing president said years ago?

Why, Lord Byron, I hope you are not forgetting those innocents who were killed and mutilated because they were watching a marathon in Boston or flying in a commercial jet over New York and Pennsylvania. And who did that in Boston? Why they turned out to be Caucasian Islamist U.S. citizens. You can't get much more Caucasian than being raised near the Caucasus Mountains, now can you? If we Americans are slaver racists, as you claim, would't we now be trying to pin this rap on some 'dark skinned poor people'?

Every crime a non-white person commits is now an act of vengeance for colonialism and liberals line up and bleat to see who can eat that BS first. Rob a convenience store and you're the frickin' Count of Monte Cristo. Fly commercial airliners into office buildings and it's revenge for... ummmm - uh, oh, yeah; stationing troops in S. Arabia's holy sand and Palestinian Arabs rolling snake eyes in 1947-8. It all makes perfect sense if you're the suicide cult called the Dem Party, led by head neo-colonial cult avenger, Reverend Nehru Gosseyn O'Blozo.

She refers to herself as a "20th-century escaped slave." I can agree with that. The way I read it, she was probably defending herself. But if she did everything she is accused of, then she is a Black radical hero in my eyes. I praise Cuba for rightly accepting her as a freedom fighter. Long live Assta Shakur.

Oh my goodness, Lord Byron, if she is a '20th-century escaped slave' then one has to suppose by simple extrapolation that you believe all unrepentant cop-killers are escaped slaves and radical heroes as well. Makes sense to you, no?